Sleeping With the Enemy by Laurie Breton

her stomach did a hard somersault .  Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  How big a trail of broken hearts had this man left behind him?  And what on God’s green earth could he possibly want with a woman like her?
    “Feeling better?” he said.
    “Lots.  Now I’m starved.  Do we have any food in this joint?”
    “I just bought groceries yesterday, but I wasn’t sure what you and the kids would want.  We can go again when the kids get home.” He saved the file he was working on and shut down the computer.
    He had loaded the cupboards and the refrigerator with food, but she settled for a simple grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of milk.  “Not exactly your customary wedding dinner,” she said.  “But then again, I’m not your customary bride.”
    He opened the fridge and knelt to search its contents.  “You’ll do.”  He stood with a plastic container in his hand.   Holding up the container, he said, “Fruit salad?”
    “No, thanks.” She patted her tummy.  “I’m full.”
    “You don’t eat much.”
    “Stick around for a while.  I ate like Garfield recovering from a crash diet with both of my other pregnancies.  It just hasn’t hit yet.  When it does, you’ll wish you’d never asked.  I’ll blow up like a hippo and eat everything but the bark on the Christmas tree.”
    One corner of his mouth tilted upward.  “That might be worth seeing.”
    He pulled a chair up to the table and she watched him work his way through a bowl of fruit salad.  When he was done, he lay down his spoon and they sat there looking at each other until their smiles faded and awareness grew heavy between them.  “Tired?” he asked softly.
    “Mmn.” She rested her chin on her palm.
    “We should probably go to bed.”  He covered the salad, got up and carried it to the refrigerator.  “Mind if I take a shower first?”
    With difficulty, she fought off the image of him wet and naked, soapy water sluicing down his body.  Detachment wasn’t going to be quite as easy as she’d hoped.
    While he was showering, Rose prepared for bed.  She briefly considered the drawer full of lacy lingerie that she’d accumulated after a dozen Christmases and anniversaries with Eddie.  She’d always felt ridiculous wearing that kind of get-up.  Most of them still had the price tags attached.  Eddie had never been able to understand her reluctance to parade around dressed like the happy hooker, so even though she never wore them, he had continued to buy her outrageously sexy sleepwear.  She should have thrown them all out years ago.  Or given them away to somebody who would wear them.  They weren’t doing anybody any good, lying there in the drawer, gathering dust.  It must have been six months or more since the last time she’d taken one out and held it to her cheek just to revel in its softness.
    She slammed the drawer shut.  Monday morning, she would bundle them all up and donate them to Goodwill.  Her marriage to Jesse Lindstrom was nothing more than a business arrangement, and she intended to make sure that neither party forgot it.  She might be sleeping with the enemy, but she hadn’t yet defected to his camp.
    So while the groom showered, the bride dressed for her wedding night in the faded red football jersey that she’d worn to bed every night for the past three years.  She ran a brush through her tangled curls so she wouldn’t look like Godzilla in the morning, turned out the lamp and climbed between sheets that smelled of fabric softener.  In the bathroom, the shower stopped running.  Heart thudding, Rose wiggled her toes between the crisp sheets, feeling like a seventeen-year-old girl about to give up her virginity to the class Romeo.  This was absurd.  He was just another man.  Not even a very exciting one.
    She rolled onto her side, punched her pillow, and glowered into the darkness.  It was those damn words, wedding night , and all they conjured up.  Passion, romance, great expectations.  All of